by Paul Cornell
Lizzie’s first impulse was to go and see what sort of company Autumn had at this time in the morning, but no, Judith was who she should go to find.
She went back upstairs, pleased at having added an unexpected flight of steps to her fitness tracker’s records, dressed, then headed off to Judith’s house.
As she walked up the hill from the marketplace, that distant sound of dance music was still drifting over the town. It was indeed weird that, if that was an illegal rave, the police hadn’t found it and closed it down by now. Something that loud couldn’t be legal, could it? Wouldn’t she have had a warning letter through her door, or something?
There didn’t initially seem to be anyone at home at Judith’s house. But that was often the case these days. Lizzie knew Judith had been grieving in a manner that was, quite possibly, unique in all of human history. Lizzie had been doing her best to help, because comforting grieving widows was very much part of her skill set, but Judith had been, as expected, one of her more challenging subjects. The old lady’s desire to not say anything to anyone about anything unless it was somehow offensive had reached a new intensity in these last few months. It took a bit of work for anyone dealing with her to realise that she’d changed, because she now bore an entirely different burden than the one she’d borne for years before. And that burden had been made worse, of course, by its own potential for change, that someday Judith might bear no burden at all. The weight on her shoulders had grown to be part of her, had informed the malice that often seemed, to those who didn’t know her well, to be what kept her going.
At Lizzie’s third ring of the bell, the door opened. Judith stood there, looking even more grim than usual. “I was just about to come and find you,” she said. “Summat terrible has happened.”
“I know—” began Lizzie.
“No you don’t,” said Judith.
* * *
“We’re dealing with two missing persons cases this morning,” Shaun had said, when Autumn had pressed him for details. “We think you might have particular insight into one of them. Rory Holt is missing.”
“Oh no.” Autumn had felt a horrible tension building in her stomach. She’d tried to keep her expression steady.
But Shaun had looked at her as if that reaction had been meaningful. “His daughter, who lives with him, called it in in the early hours. She thought she’d heard him arrive home, but when she got up to go to the bathroom, the door to his room was open and his bed hadn’t been slept in. He was nowhere in the house. She thinks he must have actually gone missing between leaving the pub and getting to their doorstep. Right now, we think you were the last person to see him.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because there’s security camera footage of you two . . . continuing your altercation.”
“You got to see security camera footage this early in the morning?”
Shaun had sighed. “I do sometimes wish the public didn’t watch so many detective shows. We saw it because it was from the security camera on the front of the police station.”
Autumn had indeed watched her share of police procedurals, and had thus suddenly been very aware of what this meant. She’d been the last to see the victim . . . and she’d been arguing with him. “You’re saying I’m some sort of . . . suspect.”
Shaun had looked awkward. “A Detective Inspector’s coming up from Swindon, about both cases. The brass are wondering if they’ve somehow got anything to do with the illegal rave that’s been reported. We were told to go out and interview everyone who might be . . . involved.” A buzz had come from his phone and he’d looked at it, then looked up. “She’s here now, and I’m to ask you if you’ll come in for interview.”
Which was how Autumn now found herself inside Lychford police station, waiting to be interviewed. She’d immediately taken up the offer to have legal representation present. The solicitor in question seemed businesslike, a little remote. Autumn numbly listened as she’d filled her in on the basics of what was going to happen. She’d never been inside Lychford police station before. It was seldom open these days, a tiny adjunct to the trading estate. Now it had a cluster of police cars and vans in front of it, and there had even been a reporter from a local radio station, with a power pack, a microphone, and a look on his face which said this was the biggest thing with which he’d ever been involved.
Shaun had sighed again as they’d made their way across the car park. “More of those’ll be on the way.” He was looking at her, Autumn had realised, like she’d let him down, like she was part of his world which wasn’t behaving as he wanted it to. Most coppers knew, from long experience, she remembered reading, that the obvious suspect had usually done it.
The reporter had seen Autumn and moved quickly, had taken a picture. She’d been caught staring, she realised, wondering if trying to get a hand in the way would make the image look worse to whatever friends and relations might see it.
She’d been given a cup of black coffee, which had been welcome, and left in this interview room with the solicitor. The guilt and the anger and the hangover were now all one thing. Oh God, she should have called Lizzie. She should have called Luke. She was remembering more and more now. And it was all bad.
A female plainclothes police officer entered, with, again, that look of businesslike distance about her, and introduced herself as D.I. Pearce. She began with some legal formalities Autumn really didn’t like the sound of, telling her she was going to be recording the interview. Then she started the tape decks running. Pearce led her through the same chain of events Shaun had, referring to his notes on occasion. She kept it so by the book that Autumn’s solicitor kept nodding along. Autumn felt, horribly, like the two of them were workers in an industrial process and she was their raw material. She said the minimum, agreeing with her previous version of events. Then they got to the point to which Shaun had taken the narrative. “When you left the pub, where was Rory Holt?”
“He followed me. He was shouting at me.”
“What was he saying?”
She could remember every detail now. “He was using . . . you know . . . hate speech.”
“What exactly?”
So Autumn was forced to put those words in her mouth. They made her feel sick all over again. To voice them felt like she was being made to bully herself. She watched the face of the D.I. for any sign of sympathy, but she remained utterly neutral. Autumn talked as, moment by moment, the memory unfolded in front of her, of how Old Rory had pushed past her and so, yes, damn it, she’d followed him, up past the police station, with him turning to spit on the ground and yell back at her.
“Just past the police station, I yelled at him one last time, and I thought . . . this sounds so stupid now . . . I thought yeah, that showed him. I turned around and walked off, talking loudly so I . . . couldn’t hear what else he was saying. Like I said, stupid. I . . . must have gone back the other way, not past that camera again.”
She looked into Pearce’s eyes, hoping to see some sign that she believed what Autumn now was pretty certain was the truth. No response.
There was a knock on the door, and Pearce called to enter. A uniformed officer came in and whispered something to her. Pearce seemed to gain a certain tension across her shoulders. She excused herself, and left, leaving the recorders on. The solicitor said that some new development must have occurred, as if that wasn’t obvious. Autumn was barely listening, she was so relieved at having found this exonerating memory, so giddy with that release.
So why did she still feel guilty, somewhere at the back of her mind?
It was the hangover. It must be. And, okay, yelling in the street at a pensioner, even at a racist pensioner, perhaps not her finest hour. And she could never feel certain that the police would agree with her newfound proof of innocence.
After half an hour, Pearce returned. She asked a couple more questions of a general nature, and wrote down her contact details, at which point Autumn realised she was actually going to . . . not get away
with this, where had that thought come from? To justifiably be let off the hook. Her solicitor broke into a smile that seemed to be about this taking less time than she thought it would.
Autumn stumbled out of the interview room, trying to restrain her trembling. In the reception area, she found Shaun, who now looked a little guilty himself. He gave her a significant look, waited until another copper had walked past, then moved close enough to whisper to her. “Just doing our job, you know.”
“It’s okay.” Because now she was in a mood to be charitable, and he’d been fine, honestly. He couldn’t help . . . unconsciously condemning her. No, stop thinking like that, Autumn.
“Turns out an old lady called it in. You woke her up. She saw you walk off just like you said you did, and saw Rory go the other way. And bless her, she stayed awake and kept watching.”
“Oh thank God.”
“She was afraid for him, and thought from what you’d been yelling that you might go back after him.”
It took Autumn a moment to process that. “From what I’d been yelling?! Didn’t she hear what he was—?!”
“It’s not me saying this.”
“No, no you’re right. Sorry. Hey, you said two missing persons. Who’s the other?”
“A lorry driver. The transponder on his vehicle said he’d swerved off the road, then it stopped working. Which is often a sign the rig’s been hijacked. Hard to see how it all fits together. I suppose it’s possible that three different illegal things this big have happened at once by coincidence. But that’d be three times more than we’ve ever had in any given year. Still. Maybe times are changing.” That beaten down look had returned to his face. At least now it wasn’t about her.
“Thanks, Shaun. Listen, if you see your Mum—”
“What?”
Autumn paused. No, maybe not. That was something she should do herself. If she was going to do it at all.
* * *
Lizzie had been looking open-mouthed between what was on Judith’s kitchen floor and Judith herself, as the old witch had told her what it meant. Then she’d had to have a sit down, and Judith had told her where to find the tea to make herself a cup. “We’ll need to wait a while before the stupid girl can get here,” she’d said.
‘Where is she now? And don’t call her—”
“In the circumstances,” Judith had muttered, “I intend to call her a lot more than that.”
Lizzie had spent the next hour or so walking up and down the kitchen, avoiding the pool of liquid, worrying and checking the step count on her wrist. Finally, the doorbell rang.
It was indeed Autumn, who entered with her hands above her head, exclaiming, “You would not believe the morning I’ve had.”
“We would,” said Judith. “Look.” And she pointed at the floor.
Autumn stopped and stared too.
On the usually spotless kitchen floor, as Lizzie had discovered when she first got here, was a pool of water, only it was reflecting the sunlight more brightly than ordinary water would. Judith poked the pool with the toe of her fluffy slipper. It rippled, and on its surface suddenly appeared a frozen image of Autumn outside the police station.
Autumn closed her eyes. “You have no right to—”
“Let’s not start about who’s got the right to do what,” said Judith sharply. “More important, there’s this.” She picked up a washing-up liquid bottle from her sink and squeezed something onto the surface of the pool. The picture changed.
Lizzie was once again looking at the image Judith had shown her before. It was the wall of someone else’s kitchen. On it was a wobbling red circle, like a heat haze made flesh. “Only we can see that,” Lizzie explained to Autumn.
“Where is this?”
“Don’t you recognise it?” asked Judith.
Autumn was frowning, deeply upset. “No,” she finally whispered.
“What about this?” Judith kicked the image and it swung round to reveal the black silhouette of a person, with limbs flailing in all directions, that was embedded in the opposite wall.
“And only we can see that too—” Lizzie began.
Autumn cut her off. “I don’t need a running commentary. Where is this?”
“I think,” growled Judith, “you two had better come with me.”
* * *
Autumn walked briskly beside Judith as they headed to her shop. She didn’t want to think; she didn’t want to let her memory go where it wanted to. That kitchen in the picture had seemed horribly familiar, and she was starting to realise . . . oh God no, it couldn’t be true. That distant music was still beating away, meaninglessly.
She unlocked the door of the shop and the three of them went inside, Lizzie with that terrible calm on her face that she reserved for the ordinary horrors that vicars encountered. She kept trying to make reassuring eye contact, but Autumn couldn’t bring herself to accept that comfort. Judith led them through toward the back room, the workroom.
The smell hit her as they approached. The smell from what was inside.
And Autumn started to remember the last time she’d come here.
She rushed toward the door to her lab. She had to get there first. She flung it open.
She fell against the wall inside, coughing.
The stench was overpowering. In the past, Judith had worked on the rest of the shop so that the smells in here wouldn’t escape to where the customers were, or rather, to where her own nose usually was. Ingredients bags and boxes were lying open all around. Autumn saw that some of what was causing the smell was still bubbling on a pot by the sink.
Judith went over to it, looked at it like it was the enemy, picked up a pan lid with the corner of her cardigan, and slammed it down on the pot. She looked to switch off the heat, then realised at the same moment Autumn did that the cooker wasn’t actually on. “That’ll need cleaning,” she said. “Cleaning with the proper stuff.” Meaning, Autumn realised, stuff that wasn’t to be found in any mundane kitchen cupboard.
Lizzie went to the pot, made the sign of the cross, closed her eyes, and mouthed some words. She opened them again and saw Autumn looking hopelessly at her. “Couldn’t hurt,” she said.
“What . . . what is that stuff?”
“You made it,” said Judith. “Didn’t you?”
Autumn recalled now marching back from having yelled at Rory Holt in the street and bursting in here, stumbling from cupboard to cupboard, only her anger keeping her going, her head in a fog. She’d made something completely instinctively, with her brain switched off, like when she’d made that potion at Christmas to save herself from a spell, but this time with nobody in the driver’s seat but sheer emotion. “Yes,” she said. “I made it. What does it do?”
Judith put a hand on her shoulder, and roughly turned her to look at the opposite wall. On it, the still steaming black goo had been painted into a rough circle. Autumn remembered now the physical action of making the shape with the brush.
“It’s . . . the same shape as the one we saw in the pool,” said Lizzie.
Judith went to the sink, turned on the tap, and put her hands under the water. Then she threw what seemed an unfeasible amount of it onto the floor. She took the bottle from the pocket of her cardigan and squirted whatever that was onto the surface again. Autumn thought distantly that she wouldn’t like to risk doing the washing up in Judith’s kitchen. Judith’s idea of potion storage relied on her formidable memory and a make-do attitude that was like a magical version of Blue Peter. She banished the thought. Too happy. She couldn’t allow herself that comfort either. She was going to have to face what she’d done here. And she had a terrible feeling she now knew what it was. “What . . . we saw earlier,” she whispered. “Was that Old Rory’s kitchen? Did I . . . was that his silhouette?”
“All light still exists, somewhere,” said Judith, ignoring the question. “You just have to find it and get on the right end of it.” An image of that kitchen formed, and Judith once more touched it with her toe. “There. Now let’s
rewind.”
She spun the image anticlockwise and it dissolved into a rainbow. Judith seemed to judge how long she had to wait, then put her toe down again. In the pool, Autumn saw Rory Holt in what, yes, must be his own kitchen, walking about, maybe intending to make tea. He looked drunk and furious, slamming cupboard doors.
He turned at what must have been a sound and stumbled back, incredulous.
Into the picture stepped Autumn. She also looked drunk and furious.
“I’m sorry,” said Autumn now.
“Be silent,” whispered Judith, in a voice Autumn had never heard from her before. It had sounded utterly condemnatory, with the experience of centuries behind it.
“You must have used magic to get in,” whispered Lizzie. Still keeping up that running commentary. As if it was the only help she could provide.
In the image, Autumn advanced on Rory, yelling at him, pointing at him. He started to yell and gesticulate back, to indicate he wanted her out of his house. He grabbed for a saucepan and brandished it like a weapon.
“You . . . thought he was going to attack you—” began Lizzie.
But Autumn in the image didn’t look threatened. “Don’t, Lizzie.”
In the pool, Autumn turned on her heel, and triumphantly stepped back out of frame. Rory looked alarmed once more. He put down the pan.
He flew backwards.
He hit the wall. The black ash burst from where he hit, in his shape.
Autumn looked up from the pool and at the faces of her friends. “Did I . . . disintegrate him? Or did he go through the wall? No, they . . . would have found him if he went through—”
“You didn’t kill,” said Judith. “Though I’m glad you’re feeling the weight of that. What you really did is summat that you might find harder to understand. Summat worse.”